


Sanctuary

by curiositymeetcat



Series: Star Wars Fics [3]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy, The Mandalorian (TV)
Genre: Adorable Baby Yoda (The Mandalorian TV), Canon-Typical Violence, Fix-It, Found Family, Original planet, Post-Canon, Post-Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, Pre-The Force Awakens, Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker Spoilers, it starts after the mandalorian and then goes through the sequel trilogy into post canon
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-04-25
Updated: 2020-05-04
Packaged: 2021-03-01 18:20:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 8,591
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23831518
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/curiositymeetcat/pseuds/curiositymeetcat
Summary: THIS IS CURRENTLY AN ABANDONED FICim sorry, i might come back to it but idk(I will update tags as I continue, they will probably change drastically)After stumbling upon a planet that was unchartable and untrackable the clan of two has expanded into the Mandalorian, the child, Omera, Winta, and about five other force-sensitive children at a time. The Mandalorian wasn't really sure how it had gotten so out of hand, but he wasn't that mad about it. Twenty-four years later the Resistance calls for reinforcements on Exegol and with the Mandalorians (yes plural) absent from their clan a half-dead Ben Solo (through space magic) washes up onto a nearby shore. Enter shenanigans featuring people trying to actually find balance in how they use the force, cannon-typical tragic backstories, Rey being Rey, Ben being sad, a romantic interest for Ben who actually has the emotional maturity to be in a healthy relationship with him, and a bunch of adorable child force-users who the author will protect at all cost while also giving them awful backstories.
Series: Star Wars Fics [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/447727
Comments: 10
Kudos: 11





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> It has been literally half a decade since I have written a word of Star Wars fanfic. (Ah, the days when Storm Pilot looked like a reasonable ship and Reylo wasn’t even a twinkle in our eyes.) That being said, while this is a fix-it fic it IS NOT going to be a reylo fic. This oc and crossover idea will just not leave my head and when I realized the Star Wars fanfic fandom was in a similar place as post-endgame avengers fanfic fandom I realized I’m just going to do whatever I want and post this monstrosity. And yes this is an OC/Ben Solo fic I'm almost 22 I can do whatever I want. 
> 
> So that being said... enjoy!

The planet had been an absolute blessing and they had found it completely on accident. Din and the child had just come out off a firefight with someone that had managed to get a tracker on them weeks before and their engines were starting to fail and they were drifting listlessly towards a brown barren planet with no apparent way to pull out of its gravitational field. As they were pulled closer in Din hoped that it wasn’t as barren as he was afraid it was. But as it looked like he was going to have to engage the landing sequence the atmosphere seemed to ripple around them and the computers of the ship turned off all at once. He quickly scrambled to get them back online and once they were and he looked up he found himself staring down at a lush green forest on the bank of a crystal blue ocean. Without having time to think too much about it, he managed to land the ship on a rocky beach. He checked over the child and when it seemed to be okay he finally let himself relax. He squeezed his eyes shut and let out a shaky breath. He was used to close calls, but things were starting to get too close for even him. He knew there were bounties out for both him and the child and the two of them being in the same spot was starting to draw too much attention. He needed to think of a way to lie low, but he knew the kinds of people that were coming after them. They weren’t going to stop.

It wasn’t until the child put one of his three-fingered hands on Din’s that he realized that he was shaking. He smiled at the child, trying to reassure him. “It’ll be okay,” he said. He wasn’t sure how much the child understood, but he tried to make it a habit of assuming he understood everything. Especially after the arm wrestling incident a few months ago. Din took a couple more shaky breaths before standing up and leading the child out of the ship. They barely had any credits to their name but he figures there was always work to be found and headed out in search of some kind of settlement.

As they walked along the beach and through the woods, Din was reminded of the planet Sorgan. But quickly shook off, what felt to him, a sense of homesickness. As the sun started to dip behind the mountains that were too their back Din was able to spot firelight in the distance. “Just a little bit longer,” he reassured the child who looked like he was about to drop from exhaustion.

If he hadn’t known better he could have sworn that the child let out a dramatic sigh in response.

After a few more minutes of walking, Din took pity on him and scooped him up into his arms. Eventually, they broke through a final line of trees and stepped into a large clearing full of all different types of wooden buildings, lit from the inside with fires. There was one in particular that drew Din’s attention. His instincts told him that it was some sort of bar. His instincts weren’t wrong, but they were definitely more surprised to see them than people usually were, even in remote planets. The din of the bar lowered when the stepped inside, but Din tried to ignore the stares as he headed over to the bar.

“Don’t mind their stares. We don’t tend to get visitors,” the bartender explained as she walked over to him.

“I can imagine. I wasn’t exactly intending to land here,” Din explained. “You wouldn’t know of anyone who needed work would you?”

The bartender sized him up before saying, “I’m not sure we have the kind of work you’re looking for.”

“I don’t think I’m in any position to be picky,” Din countered. He didn’t have to do any grunt work if there wasn’t any. He’d just as gladly help their local carpenter or even clear a few trees if it meant that the child would have something to eat. Although it occurred to him that if there were plenty of frogs around the child probably wouldn’t go hungry.

“Then I think we could find something for you to do,” the bartender assured him. She handed them both some stew and refused to let Din try and pay for it. She explained how every ten years or so a ship ends out accidentally landing on their planet and they usually just ended up staying. The village was pretty welcoming to outsiders, although she did admit that she had only heard of Mandalorians from the people that landed her and that she was part of the long list of people who had no idea what the child was. Din got out of her that there didn’t seem to be any natives on the planet—or at least they hadn’t run into them yet—and that everyone that she knew who lived there were people who had accidentally ended up on the planet. The bartender herself was part of the original group of people from a passenger ship that had ended up stranded on the planet hundreds of years ago, they had just recently learned of the Clone Wars. That led Din into recounting what had most recently happened with the Empire and a band of rebels and how the galaxy was in shambles trying to pick up the pieces from a war that had cost millions of lives. The bartender commiserated with his frustration with the way the people on top played games with everyone else’s lives. That night they found themselves with a room in the back of the bar, in exchange for the galactic news that this planet they had found themselves on rarely got.

Within the next few months, Din found himself slipping into a routine. During what seemed to be these people’s workweek he did menial jobs around the village, from chopping an elderly couple’s wood to helping some of the kids with their hoverbike in exchange for room and board in the back of the bar. On his off days, he went scavenging through the abandoned ships to see if he could repair their ship. Despite his better judgment he started to actually relax. There didn’t seem to be anyone coming after them and after a month of nothing, he started to wonder if they had finally found a place where they were truly safe.

After a month he had the ship in working order.

After two he went out on another job, making sure he knew exactly where this planet was that didn’t seem to be mapped on any chart that he could find. When he came back and everything still seemed okay, he contemplated starting to build a permanent house for the two of them.

After a year they had a house.

After two he visited Sorgan and returned with Omera and her daughter. Her daughter, Winta, was excited to hang out with the child again and Omera was glad that Din had found a place that he could finally relax and she could stop farming krill and dodging random imperial attacks. The four of them were able to find themselves in a routine that worked well for them. Din would go out to pick up a job or to meet with the Armorer every so often, sometimes Omera went with him. She had worked with the rebels in the most recent war so she could keep up well enough and was interested in what Din got up to when he left for a few days at a time.


	2. Chapter 2

It was loud and dark. That was all that Maeya could think about as she sat curled up on herself in the cellar of her home. Her day had started normal enough, but then they had come. Her parents had told her there were bad people trying to get her for years. It had all started when Fyil--one of the neighbors’ boys--had started to fight her after school when they were all four or five. Maeya had always been smaller and the blow from his punch had sent her to the ground, hard. The breath had been knocked out of her chest and as she watched his fist come down for another punch her hand had come up defensively and he had flown backward untouched. Fyil had been okay, but it had put a mark on Maeya as being strong with the force. Some people had visited them to talk about taking Maeya away to train her. Her parents had refused, not even letting the men talk to her. Maeya was their only child and they needed her to take care of them when they got older and not fly off with two robe-wearing oddities to join some sort of cult. At least that’s what Maeya overheard the night that the men had been to their house. 

After that night they had never gone without attention from someone. There was talk of a black market of force-sensitive kids that people were looking for. No one was sure if it was the Jedi looking for them or the Sith. As Maeya grew older it was hard to avoid hearing what people were saying about her. Plenty of people in her village wished that her parents had given her to those men when they had first arrived, so they didn’t have to deal with the constant flow of people wandering through town looking for her. Their neighbors didn’t help; they would constantly point out where she lived in the hopes that someone would come and get her so they wouldn’t have to deal with it anymore. Eventually, the people looking for Maeya stopped taking no for an answer and Maeya’s parents packed their bags and the three of them moved out of the village and deeper into the dense forest that surrounded them. There had been a few people who had made their way to them in the couple years that they had lived out there, but they had never been as bad as that night.

That night there had been a band of people who had come banging on their door. Maeya’s parents had quickly grabbed their blasters and ushered Maeya into her hiding spot in the cellar. The noise of the men breaking down the front door of their cabin and the shouts and the sound of their blasters going off was deafening in the pitch blackness of the cellar that Maeya was curled up in. Things fell silent after a few moments and Maeya heard a language that wasn’t her family’s. She didn’t have a chance to wonder what that meant before there was a shout and the sound of more blasters going off before things fell silent again. After a deafening moment of silence, there were the sounds of footsteps pounding towards the door of her cellar. The door opened and a beam of light shot through the darkness, landing in Maeya’s eyes. She let out an involuntary shout in surprise at the towering helmeted form standing in the doorway. 

Maeya heard the man sigh, “You’re just a child.”

Maeya was taken aback and stood up in defiance. All five foot, two of her, “I’ll have you know I’m twelve years old.”

“Of course you are,” the man said. He just continued to stand in the doorway and stare her down. 

Maeya was unnerved not being able to see his eyes. “Why are you?” she asked.

“A Mandalorian,” the man explained.

“Oh, I don’t know what that is,” she said confused. “Where are my parents?” Maeya asked, starting to get worried. 

The man didn’t say anything, which worried Maeya more so she pushed passed him back into the house. It was a blood bath. She could see the bodies of every member of the band of men that had caused her to be shoved into the cellar and the bodies of her parents next to the table where they had been eating dinner moments before these people had descended on them.

Maeya felt like she was going to pass out, there was a lump in her throat, and her knees were growing weak. She felt the gloved hand of the helmeted man on her back before she said, “We should get out of here.”

Maeya spun around and demanded, “How do I know that you didn’t kill them?”

“I didn’t,” the man answered simply.

“But, that’s,” tears were welling up in Maeya’s eyes and she wasn’t able to finish her sentence.

“Child, you’ll just have to trust me for now. We need to get out of here.”

There was enough panic behind his urging that Maeya was inclined to believe him. Maeya nodded and ran to her room. The man followed her through the small house and watched as she dragged a bag out from under her bed and started to pile books and crystals into her bag. “Child, you can’t take everything.”

“I’m not. I’m taking what’s important,” Maeya said, pulling the bag as closed as it would get and started to head out of the house. “And my name’s Maeya,” she said, leading the way out of the house and not looking back.

Maeya let the Mandalorian lead the way, but couldn’t keep to her own awful thoughts long enough before asking. “Where are we going?” 

“I have a ship right outside the village,” he answered.

“Where are we going after that?” Maeya asked.

“Well do you want to go to the Jedi? There’s a man starting up a school,” the Mandalorian offered. 

Maeya wrinkled up her nose in disgust. Her parents would hate if they had died for her to just freely go to the Jedi. “Is there another option?” 

“Well, I have another kid who is special like you and we found a planet where no one can find us.”

“Do people want to hurt him too?” Maeya asked, scared for whoever this kid was who was like her.

“They do, but I was able to hide him,” he said. Maeya thought he sounded proud of that.

“Well, I’d like to meet him at least,” Maeya decided.

The man nodded his head and Maeya could have sworn that she could tell that he smiled in response to her.

His ship was indeed at the edge of the village and Maeya followed him into the old rusty ship and took a seat next to him in the cockpit. She was nervous and kept her hands to herself, clutching at the bag that she had moved to her lap. 

The man glanced at her, clearly seeing that she was nervous, “Haven’t you been on a ship before?”

Maeya shook her head.

The man huffed a sound of disappointment. 

“What?” Maeya asked defensively. “My parents are, were,” she quickly corrected herself, “hunters and my grandparents were hunters. I was going to be a hunter. Not a single one of my ancestors ever felt the need to leave Silva.”

The man nodded before asking, “You good with a blaster?” 

Maeya huffed in frustration. “My parents wouldn’t let me use the blasters. They told me that I had to get perfect at a bow and arrow first before I could use one of the blasters,” Maeya complained before huffing again. “Isn’t that so barbaric?”

“So how good are you at a bow and arrow?” the man asked.

“I get the bullseye 90% of the time.”

“Do you?” the man asked. 

Maeya got the feeling that he didn’t believe her and told him just as much, “You don’t believe me.”

“I don’t know, you’ll have to show me.”

“I will and then you’ll eat it,” Maeya said frustrated.

The man chuckled in response to her.

They sat in silence a little bit more, the stars whizzing by as they flew through the galaxy. “What’s your kid like?” Maeya asked, breaking the silence.

“Well, you guys look kind of similar,” the man said, spinning in his chair towards her.

“So he’s green?” Maeya asked.

The man laughed, “Yeah.”

“How old is he?” Maeya asked.

“I think he would be 60 now.”

Maeya almost fell out of his chair. “60! You said he was a child!”

“Yes, I’m not sure what species he is. No one has been able to tell me. I’ve been taking care of him for ten years and he’s just started to become a little vocal. But he’s very strong with that force thing,” he explained.

“How did you meet him?” Maeya asked and settled in as he started to meet the child that he had been caring for, for the past ten years. She was happy to have found something that he actually seemed to like to talk about. He seemed to really love the child that he cared for and it made Maeya more comfortable knowing that he seemed to be good at heart. She didn’t have much of an option about whether or not to go with him but it made her feel a lot better. 

“Can I ask something of you?” the man asked after he had told her all about how he ended up caring for the child.

Maeya thought about it before saying, “Only if you tell me what your name is.”

“You’re not supposed to know my name,” the man said.

“Well, who am I going to tell? Does your kid know your name? Wouldn’t it be weird that I was the only one who didn’t know your name out of your group of people?” Maeya said trailing off, uncertain of whether or not he had called him and his child a family or not.

“It’s Din,” the man said to her surprise. 

Maeya studied her helmeted face before nodding, “That makes sense. You look like a Din.”

“Have you met many Dins?” he asked clearly amused.

“No, not one, but you look like one,” Maeya decided. “Now, what’s your question.”

“What’s in the bag?” Din asked, pointing at the bag that Maeya was still clutching in her lap.

“Books,” Maeya answered simply.

“Yeah, I got that,” Din said. He seemed annoyed.

“Ugh,” Maeya sighed. “Well, my parents didn’t want me to go with the Jedi when I had first started to show that I was force sensitive. But they also didn’t want me to not be in control of what I could do. So they searched for these books. They’re really special and rare and they help,” Maeya had grown somber by the time that she had finished explaining.

“How do they help?” Din asked, clearly curious.

“Well, they’re old Jedi books and they outline some exercises and some history of people who are force sensitive. There’s also a couple written by people who aren’t force-sensitive and those are really interesting. There’s one about the history of the force and another one about the merits of the different orders of people who are force-sensitive. I'm really interested in the Sith. Not because I like what they do," she was quick to clarify. "But because they are constantly being the counter to the Jedi and I don't know, maybe if people started to incorporate the way that both sides use the force then it wouldn't feel the need to balance itself in such a dramatic way."

Din hummed to himself clearly thinking before asking, "Do you know where any of those books would be?"

"I don't know, I think my parents got them from shady people. I'm sure that guy who's starting a school would have some," Maeya said. 

They arrived at the planet after a few more hours of travel. Maeya marveled at how the planet shifted and revealed itself to them as they descended. "That's so cool."

Din laughed, "That's what I thought when I first saw it too."

"You said trackers don't work here?" Maeya asked. She was looking forward to not having to hide anymore. It had been a very lonely seven years. 

"Yes, no one has been able to find us for ten years," Din nodded as he landed the ship in a clearing. She thought that he seemed like he landed in this particular clearing a lot. There seemed to be impressions in the ground almost exactly where he parked. 

When they began to leave the ship Maeya noticed a house in the clearing. It was a small wooden house like the ones at home. When she caught sight of people peeking out of the doorway of the house she ducked behind Din, in an attempt to stay out of sight. There were two women, one older than the other who seemed to be around 20, and behind them was a little guy. Maeya understood why Din had compared the two of them. Maeya’s skin was a deep green, the color of pine needles, her ears were smaller than his and a little bit more floppy, but there were two differences that she decided she wouldn’t forgive Din for. The kid was about two feet tall and Maeya was a proud five-two and this tiny green child was bald and Maeya was very proud of her waist-length thick black hair. Maeya was annoyed and to the amusement of everyone there, she let Din know exactly how she felt. 

It turned out there were more than just the four people that Maeya had first met living in the house. There were three other kids, all younger than Maeya, that Din had rescued from bad situations in the last ten years that he had been living on that planet. They were from all different places throughout the galaxy and had all been affected by the search for force-sensitive people in one way or another. Din explained to her that if a Mandalorian found a child it was in their creed to take in children and try to return them to their own, but that he also had a very bad habit of finding orphaned force-sensitive children.


	3. Chapter 3

“Mika, if you throw that rock at me one more time I’m going to throw you into the sea I swear to the stars,” Maeya threatened as she helped Omera gut the fish that they had caught earlier in the day, brandishing her knife to accent her point. She had recently turned twenty-one and she had been with them for nine years as of two months prior.

“I didn’t do it,” the boy sighed from the beach behind them.

Mika had been with them three years and Maeya knew that he had a propensity for throwing rocks at people. They all knew it. It was the only thing that he was comfortable with doing with the force, but since he did it with the force it was almost impossible to catch him in the act. “Mika, don’t throw rocks at your sister,” Omera lectured him.

“You’re not my mom and she’s not my sister,” Mika huffed. 

Maeya and Omera shared a look. Mika was turning twelve in a few weeks and it showed in how utterly frustrating he was to work with. Omera called them all her children and them all siblings. Once the children chose to stay never seemed to be a big deal and they did have a choice. They were all free to leave whenever they wanted to. Din made it abundantly clear that he would gladly take them wherever they wanted to go if they didn’t want to stay and a few kids had come through and only stayed a few days before getting frustrated and leaving. 

“Then I guess you don’t want any of this fish we’re working on,” Omera asked him.

“I could catch my own food,” Mika said, defending himself. 

Maeya snorted in spite of herself.

“What?” he asked, clearly getting frustrated.

“I’m sorry, Mika, you’re just so loud. I would love to see you try and hunt,” Maeya said, trying to stifle a laugh.

“Could I go with you next time?” he asked hesitantly. Maeya usually did the hunting for their small clan. The forest that surrounded their cluster of buildings was thick with deer and bear that Maeya knew how to hunt from her childhood. She had worked hard on making a bow the first month that she had gotten there and then some arrows. 

“As long as Mom says you can. I think you might be getting old enough. It would be nice to have some help,” Maeya said. The last bit clearly towards Omera.

“Can I Mom?” Mika asked.

“Oh, now I’m your mom?” Omera joked with him before adding, “Yes, if Maeya thinks you’re old enough I don’t see why not.”

As they began to discuss details of how and when they were going to go hunting and what Maeya was actually allowing him to do, Din’s ship flew overhead and the Mika quickly helped them pack up everything and head back to the clearing. It was always anxious waiting to see what state Din would be in or what he might have brought back with him when he came back from a job. Winta once asked during super why he still goes out. They all had everything that they needed. It just didn’t make sense to her that he would endanger himself all the time to just track down a smuggler or a prison escapee. He explained, in his quiet way, that he couldn’t sit still knowing that there were children like Maeya or the child still out there getting caught in the crossfire of the New Republic’s struggle for power. In short, he had a soft spot for foundlings. 

The three of them made it back to the clearing as Din and Winta were unloading the ship from their most recent outing. Winta had taken up the creed of the Mandalorians a few years after Maeya had arrived and had started to accompany Din on his outings. What surprised Maeya was the addition of the third Mandalorian that was with them and the small figure hiding right behind the door of the ship.

Omera was the first one of them to speak up, “Who do you two have with you?” 

Maeya watched as their heads swiveled towards them and could have sworn that Din broke out in a smile. “This is the Armorer,” he said, introducing the woman to them.

“It’s nice to meet you,” Omera said. 

Maeya and Mika waved at her in an attempt to be polite. “Your clan has certainly grown since the last time I saw it,” the woman said, clearly amused.

“Mika and I should start dealing with the fish,” Maeya said. She didn’t like the way that the Armorer seemed to be sizing them up.

“Oh, could you guys take care of this guy,” Winta said, acknowledging the boy that was still hovering by the ship.

“Sure,” Maeya set her basket down and crossed the clearing to introduce herself to the boy. He seemed to be around ten. “I’m Maeya, what’s your name?” Maeya asked, introducing herself.

The boy didn’t respond but tried to hide further in the ship.

“Hey, it’s okay,” she said, taking a few steps towards him. 

The boy didn’t seem to be hearing her but stared at her belt; half of him was still hidden behind the wall of the ship. She realized he was staring at her lightsaber clipped to her belt. A few years ago she had managed to finally make a working one from one of the crystals that her parents had given her years ago. Maeya figured that it was a good idea to have a way to defend herself when all of the Mandalorians were gone. So she made herself a lightsaber, it took years to get it right, but she did it eventually and now it almost never left her side. Most of the people who lived around them had never actually seen a lightsaber, so it never drew any attention. “Do you know what this is?” she asked, pulling it out of the loop on her hip.

The boy nodded, his eyes wide. 

“I can put it up if you don’t like it,” she offered.

The boy shook his head. “You could just get it with the force,” he said. It was the first words that he had spoken and his voice seemed like he hadn’t used it in a long time. 

“I guess that’s true. I would never hurt you though. This is only for bad guys,” Maeya promised, taking a small step closer to him.

“Do you promise?” the boy asked.

“I promise,” Maeya said, giving him a smile.

The boy nodded seriously and took a couple of steps out from the ship. 

Maeya inhaled sharply in shock. When the boy came into full view she could see that his entire left arm was missing and burns were visable, peeking out from under the collar of his shirt.

The boy burst into tears and ran forward, wrapping his arms around her waist. “Oh, dear, you’re okay. You’re safe here,” Maeya reassured the boy trying to calm him down while she ran a comforting hand through his kinky black.

“He killed them,” she heard the boy say in between sniffles. 

“Who did?” Maeya asked, kneeling down in front of him in an attempt to get on his level.

“Ben, he was so scared and angry. He kept saying that Master Luke tried to kill him. I don’t know what happened but he was just so scared and then he got so angry. I don’t think he noticed I wasn’t dead he was so just angry and scared. I don’t know where Luke went, but he wasn’t there when I looked for him,” the boy explained all in one breath and then started crying again.

“Well, I don’t know who Ben or Master Luke are, but I can promise you, as long as you're here, you’ll be perfectly safe,” Maeya promised, giving him a hug. After the boy had stopped crying as much she asked him, “Do you want to help us salt and pickle some fish?” She was trying to give him something to do that might distract him.

The boy nodded and they headed back to where she had left her basket and joined Mika in the main kitchen. “Your name’s Maeya,” the boy asked her.

“Yeah, what’s yours?” Maeya asked.

“Caldev,” the boy told her, staring down his piece of fish. “But my friends call me Cal.”

** 

Maeya spent the rest of the day with him, keeping a close eye on him while they worked in the kitchen and then set up his room. They were a little short on space, so they set up a bed for him with one of the younger kids. When they had finished setting him up and he seemed distracted talking with his new roommate Maeya went in search of Din. She found him tinkering with something inside the ship and she went and plopped into one of the chairs in the cockpit. “What is it?” Din asked.

“That boy,” Maeya said. Something had been bothering her but she couldn’t put her finger on it.

“Is he doing okay?” Din asked as he worked.

“As best as can be expected.”

“What’s wrong?”

“How long was he alone before you guys found him?”

“I think a few days,” Din responded. “Why?”

Maeya took a deep breath and rubbed her face before starting to tell him about what had happened about a week ago. Maeya had woken up drenched in sweat and had only managed to lean over the bed before throwing up. She didn’t have time to be disgusted before a wave of pain and sadness overtook her. She heard a wail from the courtyard and threw on a pair of pants before stumbling out of the door of her small house. As she made her way from the main house where the little ones were and another wave of pain overwhelmed her and threw her to the ground. She tried to get back up and stumbled towards the house, but fell back down. Maeya felt overwhelmed with noise and pain but the woods were silent except for the crying of one of the kids in their room. She curled up on herself and tried to calm down and figure out what was happening. She wasn’t hurt and there wasn’t any noise, but force she hurt and the noise was deafening. But at the same time, it felt distant. She didn’t know how long she laid there before she looked up and the blurry figure of Omera was coming towards her.

“What’s happening?” Maeya croaked out, her voice was hoarse and it was then when she realized that tears had been running down her face.

“Come inside,” Omera said, holding out a hand to Maeya who took it. Together they slowly headed into the main house.

“There was a kid crying,” Maeya said distantly as Omera sat her down in front of the fire and put a cup of something warm in her hand.

Omera nodded, “The child was having nightmares and woke up the Kuthosh twins.”

“Is he okay now?” Maeya asked. 

“He seems to be,” Omera assured her.

Maeya nodded into her cup, “I think something awful has happened. I just feel so angry now. I was so scared earlier. Everything was so loud and it hurt. I was so scared, but it wasn’t me, none of that was happening to me. I’m not making any sense am I?”

Omera sighed, “I don’t pretend to know about your relationship with the force, but it makes some sense.”

Maeya finished explaining what had happened to Din, who had put down what he was working on to listen to her. “It was awful,” Maeya said, trying to take deep breaths to calm down. She had started to notice that she was shaking.

"It'll be okay," Din assured her. "We'll get through this. We always do." 

True to his word they managed through the galactic war that followed. The Mandalorians left for work less often, which didn't affect them very much. They had grown to be very self-sufficient, but Din grew stir-crazy, not having anything to put his mind to aside from hunting and watching the little ones. Over the next six years, the Armorer moved to the planet with the few remaining Mandalorians in order to lie low, Din got bored enough that he renovated every single house in their clearing, and Maeya managed to train Mika to help her with the hunting for the family. Then the Resistance sent out a message for help on the planet Exegol the Mandalorians were more than eager to have something to do. Even Omera went with them, leaving Maeya to watch the young ones with Mika and the Armorer in case things went bad.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Guess what guys, it's Star Wars Day!!!! So I thought I would drag myself out of my senioritis to post another chapter. I've been wanting to stay a chapter ahead of what I post, but you know what. It's fine. The next one is almost finished so \\(-.-)/ whatever. Hope you guys enjoy!

“Maeya,” Mika had run into her small one room house, breathing heavily. He was eighteen now and his gangly limbs didn’t quite fit his body yet. Maeya found it hard to take him seriously a lot of the time. She was about to fuss at him about not knocking before coming in, but swallowed that complaint when he looked panicked. “The twins found something weird.”

The Kuthosh twins were now eight and were more than a handful. Maeya had taken on teaching the kids who wanted to know how to use the forces and both of those boys wanted to learn at the exact same time. “What kind of weird?” she asked.

“A dead body by the sea kind of weird,” Mika said like he thought he was going to get in trouble.

Maeya narrowed her eyes and asked, "Do you know who it is?"

Mika shook his head, “I don’t, he didn’t, he’s not one of ours.”

Maeya grumbled to herself about this weird planet as she pulled on her boots and grabbed a poncho on the way out the door. It had been raining for days now and had started to get chilly. Maeya hated the cold. Her home planet was warm year-round and her body was most definitely not made for the winters on this planet and they were starting to head into one. “Well, show me the body,” Maeya said when Mika was just standing in the pouring rain looking like he didn’t know what to do.

“Oh yeah, right,” he said. The two of them took off at a light jog towards the sea. They got there a couple of minutes later and sure enough, there was a body lying on their rocky beach. The man seemed over six feet, was a pale human with brown hair and was built like a brick wall. Maeya’s gut told her he wasn’t dead.

Maeya knelt next to the man and checked and sure enough he was breathing and there was a heartbeat. Faint as it was, it was there. “He’s not dead,” she told Mika. “We have to get him inside.” She sized the guy up and braced herself for what she was going to have to do. The guy had a good foot on her--she had never grown anymore after leaving her home planet and was stuck at a tiny five-two. It annoyed her to no end and she took every chance she had to jokingly complain about how Din had stunted her growth. If the Mandalorians were there she would have had help, but a resistance had set out a plea for help and the half a dozen Mandalorians that were usually around had left to help. Not even their mom, Omera, was still there. Mika was the only other adult who could have helped, but Maeya didn’t think they could wait for him to try to help. She was already getting chilled to the bone and she didn’t know how hurt this man might be and the sun was starting to dip behind the mountains in the distance.

So, Maeya braced herself and picked up the limp body and once he was safely on her shoulder she shouted at Mika to go ahead of her and get a fire started in the kitchen. They were both going to need to warm up if she wasn’t going to get sick from this and he wasn’t going to actually die. The walk back to the main house was excruciating. If it was the height of summer and she was walking through the forest she could have carried him easily. Where her tribe was from, it was It went faster than anything else would have gone, even though she was soaked through and frozen to the bone by the time that she made it back to the main house. When she finally made it to the kitchen she almost dropped him out of exhaustion, just barely making it to the long bench that sat closest to the fire pit in the middle of the long room. 

Maeya dropped down onto the ground next to the fire and shook from the damp coldness that had made its way underneath her poncho and penetrated her clothes as she had traipsed through the water logged ground between the sea and their clearing. “You look like a drowned womp rat,” one of the boys stated standing overtop of her.

Maeya didn’t have the energy to fight him on it and managed to chatter out, “Can you get us some blankets.”

Mika's eyes got large, noticing how cold she was for the first time and ran off. She hoped for something warm. She must have passed out or something, since the next thing that she noticed was being covered in blankets and Mika seemed to be stirring a stew over the fire. Maeya sat up dislodging some of the blankets on her and asked, “Did the kids eat?” There were about six kids under eighteen that the two of them were responsible for when all the Mandalorians weren’t planet side.

“Yeah,” Mika nodded and handed her a bowl of the stew. 

“Is he okay?” Maeya asked, nodding to the mystery guy, after getting a few spoonfuls of stew into her.

“I got him into some dry clothes. Desh and him seemed to be the same size so I swapped out his clothes,” Mika explained.

Maeya nodded into her soup. Desh had been there when she had arrived at the clan and had moved out a few years ago to search out a job with droids. Din wasn’t happy when he explained what exactly he wanted to do. But he tried his best to be supportive and find a place where he could get some work. Desh and Mika had been close, so he had left him a lot of his clothes and other things that he couldn’t take with him. It had been a bit hilarious watching Mika try to make Desh’s clothes work so she was happy he found a use for them. 

“After that his breathing got a lot deeper and his heartbeat stronger. I can't believe you were able to hear his breathing on the beach.” Mika said, shaking his head.

“I didn’t. I felt it,” Maeya explained. That was a good enough of an answer for Mika. Maeya and the child were usually the ones that would help if anyone was injured in the clan. They usually couldn’t explain how they knew people were hurt. They just felt it. 

With Mika’s help they were able to move the man into Maeya’s house and into her bed. As their clan had grown and the children had grown up they had slowly moved out of the main house and started building their own houses around the large clearing that they lived in. Maeya’s house had everything she needed with a fireplace, a bed and some extra chairs. She had her privacy and her shelves upon shelves of books. She had been collecting them for the past twenty years and she had quite the collection at this point. They piled blankets back onto him and Mika went about starting a fire as Maeya started to check the man over. “How is he?” Mika asked standing over Maeya. She knew he was just curious and concerned, but he was distracting as she tried to concentrate.

She had closed her eyes and was moving her hands over his body trying to find whatever had injured him to such an extent. "I can't tell what's wrong with him," Maeya replied frustrated. 

"What do you mean?" Mika asked.

"There's nothing physically wrong with him," Maeya explained, frustrated. She usually helped out when the kids got hurt. This was the first time she was stumped.

"He just showed up half dead with nothing wrong with him?" Mika asked.

"I mean he seems exhausted, but yeah there's nothing wrong with him, aside from some scar tissue around his stomach," Maeya sighed. “It’s almost like,” Maeya trailed off. The scarring felt circular, like a burn.

“Like what?” Mika asked.

“Nothing,” Maeya said, waving him off. "Go get some sleep. It has to be late. Thanks for your help." 

"No problem, I need to go into town tomorrow. Want me to ask if anyone came in recently?" Mika asked, opening the door and gesturing at the guy laying in the bed. 

"No, don't say anything yet," Maeya said she was worried people were after their mystery man. He did show up half dead after all.

"Okay," Mika said before heading out into the night, leaving Maeya alone.

Maeya checked him over again desperate to find anything that might clue them into what was happening, but after failing to find anything wrong with him again she bundled herself up by the fire and drifted off back to sleep.

**

Maeya jerked awake hours later. It seemed like it was mid-day, she could hear the twins playing with the child in the center of the cluster of buildings, and the fire she had been sitting in front of had burned it’s way out. It took Maeya a few moments before she realized what had woken her up. The man that they had found yesterday was tossing and turning in the bed. Maeya shifted in her mound of blankets to face him. She didn’t want to scare him so she stayed where she was and she closed her eyes and reached out her mind in an attempt to calm him down. Maeya did this from time to time with the little ones that came into the clan. They had a fair amount of nightmares between all of them so she knew what to do to calm them down without prying into what was upsetting them. 

She wasn’t prepared though for him to wake up. “What are you doing?” he sat up in bed and demanded.

Maeya’s eyes snapped open and when her eyes landed on him she could have laughed. He was clearly trying to be demanding, but his hair was ruffled and his face was splotchy from being asleep for so long. It really hurt his attempt at having a demanding presence. “You were having a nightmare,” Maeya explained. “I was trying to calm you down.”

The man didn’t seem to believe her.

Maeya sighed, “It works with the kids.” She continued, “I thought it would work with you too.” 

“What do you mean?” he asked as Maeya started to get up and fold the blankets that she had piled on top of herself.

“We have a bunch of kids in this clan and they're all from bad backgrounds. That’s how they ended up here,” Maeya explained. “So a lot of the time they have nightmares and what I was doing usually calms them down. I didn’t mean to pry and I didn’t see anything. If that’s what you’re worried about.”

The man furrowed his eyebrows. “What happened?” the man asked. His voice was soft. Maeya thought that he sounded scared or worried.

“Well,” Maeya said as she pulled on a sweater. It had definitely gotten colder during the night. “Two of the boys found you over by the sea. You were soaked to the bone and half dead, so we brought you back. Mika got you into some dry clothes and then I fell asleep.”

“That’s it?” the man asked.

“Yep, that’s all I know,” Maeya said with a shrug. 

“You’re force-sensitive,” he said like it was a statement of fact.

“So are you,” Maeya said with a raise of her eyebrow. It took a strong connection with the force to be able to sense that someone else was force-sensitive. 

“This is going to sound weird, but,” the man said with a sigh, running his hands through his hair in an attempt to smooth it down. “What planet am I on?”

“Silenda,” Maeya explained as she started to rustle through her cabinet to see if she had anything for them to eat. 

“I don’t know where that is,”

“No one does unless you’ve been here. There’s something weird with the atmosphere that cloaks the planet from all trackers and space navigation systems. We have to use wayfinders to find our way back everytime we leave,” Maeya explained, victoriously pulling a canteen of fresh water and a box of granola. “It’s probably some weird force thing.”

The man seemed to ask more to himself than to Maeya, “How did I get here?” 

“Where were you last?” She asked, taking a sip of water before offering it to the man.

“Exegol,” he said, swinging his legs over the edge of the bed and taking the water from Maeya.

Maeya started coughing in surprise. She knew that was the hidden Sith planet that all the fuss with the resistance had been about.

“Are you okay?” he asked, starting to get up to try and help.

Maeya waved him off, “Why the stars were you there?”

“I, um,” the guy waffled. He was clearly not comfortable with where the conversation was going.

“Don’t worry about it. You can explain later,” Maeya sat down on the bed next to him and offered to share the box of granola with him. “What’s your name?”

“Ben,” the guy said, sounding slightly uncertain.

“Your last name wouldn’t happen to be Solo would it?” Maeya asked half joking, but when she looked over and he had gone pale she realized she had clearly guessed correctly. “You’re joking.”

“How did you know?” he asked softly.

“There’s a kid here,” Maeya started with a sigh. “Well, he’s actually an adult now, who you left for dead six years ago. He’s going to be absolutely pissed when he gets back and sees you.”

“What’s his name?”

“He went by Cal when you knew him,” Maeya said, running a hand through her messy hair. She took it out of a braid and started to rebraid it as she talked. “He’s a Mandalorian now, took up the way.”

“He’s alive?” Ben asked. 

“Yeah,” Maeya confirmed for him. He looked like he was going to throw up. “The Mandalorians found him, with his arm missing and a fair amount of burns. He’s been doing well here though. It’s always a hard adjustment, but he really threw himself into the clan,” Maeya made a face, thinking about how angry he was a lot of the time. “Honestly it's super lucky he didn’t decide to continue studying the force, ‘cause I don’t know if I could deal with that much,” Maeya made a vague hand gesture.

“Why isn’t he here?” Ben asked. 

“The resistance asked for help two days ago--I guess to stop you from doing whatever--and they haven’t gotten back yet,” Maeya explained. 

“They weren’t going to stop me,” Ben said. 

“Explain,” Maeya demanded of him and explain he did. When Ben had stopped talking Maeya felt like she knew this man’s entire life story. “So let me get this straight. Your force girlfriend stabbed you after you spent a full year trying to get her to ‘rule the galaxy’ with you at the exact same minute your mom died and then your dead dad force-projected from your subconscious to tell you to actually be a decent human being and not let the leader of the Sith possess her, I guess, and then after the two of you, but mostly her, defeated him, she died and you healed her back from the dead she kissed you and then when you died she just left you there?”

“You don’t believe me,” Ben sounded annoyed.

“No, I know you’re telling the truth. I can feel it and no offense but you don’t seem like you would be a good liar. That doesn’t mean I’m not going to make fun of you a little. You wanted to rule the world with this girl and she left you for dead and managed to kill you after trying to murder you for a solid year straight,” Maeya said, nudging him with her elbow.

“You seem very relaxed about everything I’ve told you,” Ben said, seeming skeptical.

Maeya shrugged, “You haven’t tried to kill me yet and even if you did I could take you. I don’t know what my dad is going to decide when they all get back, but he is the head of the clan so you’re going to have to deal with him. It’s not really my decision.”

“What do you think he’s going to do?” Ben asked, clearly concerned.

“Well, he has a soft spot for lost kids. So you might be fine.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Also I watched Episode 1 and Episode 2 yesterday for the first time. (I want to watch Episode 3 today.) I totally thought I had watched them before but it turns out I've only ever watched the first half an hour of episode 2 and had the lego Star Wars game on DS. So that was a wild experience. If you want to chat about the prequels in the comments I'm down because I have feelings.


End file.
